STATE SYSTEM STANDS FIRM ON APSCUF CONTRACT POSITION
Negotiations planned December 1112/5/2012

A day after APSCUF members flooded the Inbox of State System of Higher Education Chancellor John Cavanaugh with an email blitz urging the settlement of a fair contract, the State System yesterday issued a reiteration of its positions as it prepares for the next bargaining session on December 11th.

The statement points out that students now provide 75 percent of the revenues that operate the fourteen State System schools and that families in today’s economy have limited ability to absorb additional costs.

The statement also says the healthcare proposal offered to the faculty union is the same package in place for 80,000 other state employees, including the governor; and it says that the wages offered to temporary part-time faculty are more than double the national average, and are more than Penn State, Pitt, and Temple pay their part-time faculty. A three-credit part-time teacher earns $5,600, and the state proposes to freeze that wage as it is and also maintain the practice of paying full-time temprorary faculty the same as tenure or tenure-track faculty.

Finally, the State System team affirms its stance on payments for developing distance education courses, saying that that should be handled no differently than the system in place for developing traditional courses. In recent contract agreements, the state has been phasing out the payments, which were introduced in 1999.

In addition to the December 11th session, negotiations are also scheduled for December 19th.